16th May – Ajo again

We awoke to another dreary, rainswept day – no, sorry, that was you – ours was ridiculously warm and sunny as usual.

We had decided to stay on another day to take a trip to the Mexican border which lies about 40 miles to the south. Having received warnings both at home and abroad about the potential dangers of the border area we hired mariachi costumes to enable us to blend in with the locals but unfortunately the sombreros kept blowing off on the bikes.

The route to the border at Lukeville took us down Highway 85 through the Sonoran Desert and the Organ-pipe Cactus National Monument. This was a classic ride down a quiet two lane highway through spectacular desert scenery.

We stopped for petrol about half way in the tiny town of “Why”. Speculating about the origins of the name we imagined the original settlers being asked “Why (on earth did you choose to live here)?” Or maybe it was founded by a grizzled pioneer called Ebenezer Why. In fact it turned out that it owes its name to the fact that Highways 85 and 86 used to intersect there in a “Y” junction but state law required all town names to have at least 3 letters so “Y” became “Why”! By the way the gas station was, of course, called the “Why Not”.

There was plenty of County Sheriff and Border Patrol presence along the road and in fact the day began to take on something of a law-enforcement theme from thereon. We reached Lukeville and the Mexican border at the aptly named Gringo Pass. With assurances that we would have no trouble getting back in we were waved over the border on foot to the Mexican side.

Having set foot in Mexico, I had a bottle of Coke while Mark was being mugged and having his organs harvested. We then walked back to the American side where we had to pass through Immigration again, which was slightly unnerving but our reception seemed to be a little warmer than that of the Mexicans who were coming through at the same time.

On the way back we stopped off at the Organ-pipe Cactus National Memorial Visitors’ Centre, which was fascinating. The area was set up to help restore the biodiversity of the area that had been over-grazed in the past. It’s hard to imagine a desert becoming more barren but that is what has been happening and the original desert that they are working to restore is actually very rich in plant and animal life.

About 10 miles north of the visitors centre we came to a Border Patrol checkpoint. Mark was taken to one side for questioning which caused me some slight anxiety as I followed him in! A Border Patrolman then came up to me, fixed me with a steely stare and asked if I was a US citizen. I naturally retorted “Certainly not old chap. I’m British!” This seemed to have the desired effect and I was waved on my way. I then had an irrational urge to say “Go easy on my friend. He’s a Mexican and he doesn’t speak much English”. However I decided that neither the Patrolman nor Mark would be likely to appreciate the joke. Fortunately my companion was released soon after and we were able to continue on.

A few miles further along, Mark had to stop to check some equipment on the bike and the local Sheriff rolled up and asked him if he was OK. So all in all we seem to have seen quite a bit of the law on this stage of the trip.

We rounded off the day with a visit to the centre of Ajo which is quite a pleasant old Western town. The huge open-cast copper mine there closed down in the 1980s, the railroad stopped running and the population dropped from 10000 to 2000. We visited the local history museum which is run by volunteers and occupies the church of what had been an Indian village until the mining company moved them out! They had some quite fascinating old artifacts which had all been donated by local people and we had a very interesting talk through it all by a retired local history teacher.

So that’s it for today. Tomorrow we aim to get to Benson which is east of Tucson and should put us within a day’s ride of New Mexico.